us here, mr. president good to be with you again. we were together at a humerus event earlier. nice to be funny. this time not on purpose. we'll see what happens. this is obviously an area of great concern to the entire world and america in particular, which is to see a complete change in the structure and the environment in the middle east. with the arab spring came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, an opportunity for greater participation on the part of women and public life, and in the economic life in the middle east. instead we have seen in nation after nation, a number of disturbing events. of course in syria, 30,000 civilians killed by the military there. we see in libya an attack, apparently, by i think we know now by terrorists of some kind against our people there, four people dead, our hearts and minds go to them. mali has been taken over, northern part of mali, by al qaeda-type individuals. we have in egypt a muslim brotherhood president. what we are seeing is a pretty dramatic reversal in the hopes we had for the region. and, of